The Killer in Me

by Margot Harrison

  “No touching or eye contact.”

  I shrug.

  “It means something,” Dylan says. “You gotta read body language—I learned that the hard way. When I was a kid, I couldn’t read anybody. I didn’t like to touch, so I thought the kissing and hugging everybody else did was for show, like actors in a play.”

  “Me too,” I say before I can stop myself. I used to think it was bizarre when my friends’ moms ruffled their hair, or their dads picked them up and twirled them. Not the love, just its oversized expression. Could they be faking?

  He’s still talking: “So I taught myself. I watched people in real life, on TV, and I learned to tell when they’re for real and when they’re not.”

  This sounds like something the Thief might confess: how he learned to imitate people, set them at ease, lure them into trust. But it also sounds like something a brother of mine would say.

  How often have I had thoughts and feelings I couldn’t express to anyone? How long have I been feigning normal ones?

  I remember my dream—not the horrible part with the saw, but the part where Dylan and I became two halves of something, two overlapping shadows. We have parts nobody else does. What we form together is neither beautiful nor ugly; it’s like one of those red rock formations jutting from the desert, jagged and brutal, complex and necessary.

  I don’t want to believe anything that would take him away from me. I just want to see his good parts match up with his bad parts; I want to know the story he doesn’t tell anyone else.

  That story has dark and sketchy passages, no doubt, just like my own does. But the darkness that’s in him is in me, and I’m no killer.

  Maybe there is no mine shaft in that ridge, never was. Only the imagined possibility. Maybe that’s what I’ve been dreaming—possibilities stitched together from shreds of memory, distant smells and sounds and names.

  Like Dylan’s name. My mom has admitted that she never wanted to know too much about my past—and, growing up, I thought I didn’t, either. But maybe some part of me disagreed, and it was that part that plucked his name from an adult conversation and stashed it away for future use. I may not have remembered who he was, but I remembered him.

  And then, where my memories stopped, I started to invent him.

  Dylan reaches into his backpack and pulls out a small, fat bottle. As he passes it to me, the liquid inside turns golden in the sun.

  The label says Kentucky bourbon—a brand I’ve never heard of. Does he expect me to drink it?

  “It was our dad’s favorite whiskey. I got you a sample to drink when you turn twenty-one.”

  My face reddens as my hands caress the bottle’s contours. It looks expensive. “But that’s four years away. I’ll see you before then.” My throat goes dry. “I mean, I’ll even see you on my way back through Albuquerque. My friend…I’ll come back to pick her up, stay a few more days. Maybe you can take me out to the desert then.”

  “I’d love that,” my brother says. “I don’t know, it was just, I saw that bottle sitting in my shed, and—something moved me. I thought I’d give it to you now.”

  I don’t text Warren; I can’t bring myself to.

  Instead, I go back to the motel room and crash on top of the covers, letting my throbbing joints and synapses rest. I’ve been awake all night, a boulder putting a painful crick in my back, and my throat feels scarred from the coffee I’ve drunk to conceal my exhaustion. My body doesn’t care that Warren could burst in on me at any time, full of accusations.

  At 6:20, I force myself up and pack for tomorrow’s trip to Arizona. Call Becca to assure her I really am coming this time. Text my mom the daily update.

  Mom’s e-mailed me a long story about how Sugarman tried to assault a skunk and got a bath in hydrogen peroxide for his trouble, complete with photos of my seething cat, his wet fur in a full-body Mohawk. The last line is Call any time. I know she wants to talk daily, but she’s trying to give me my space with Becca.

  Kirby’s been silent for a while. I almost text her, but then I realize that to explain the situation with Warren, to get her advice on my next move, I’d have to explain too much else.

  Before I can put down the phone, another name in my contact list catches my eye—Dory Biedenkopf.

  Is Dory the one I should blame for all this? My mom chose to ignore my past, but maybe Dory read the files and paid attention to the news reports. She could have known all about my brother, my dad, the murder and subsequent suicide. When I was young, she visited us twice or three times in Vermont with her new family. Who knows what she might have carelessly said—not just about Becca and Dylan, but about the violence in my past. “Nina’s so much better off with you,” I imagine her telling my mom. “Sometimes I worry about the other one—that little boy.”

  Mom would have tuned it all out. But me—I might have listened and absorbed. Heard the note of warning in Dory’s voice, known there was a terrible secret involving my brother.

  And then, in the way kids do, perhaps I turned it all into a story I thought was about somebody else. A story that eventually inspired me to stalk my own brother, first online and then in person. A story that convinced me he was the killer.

  It’s after eight. Warren should be here—and suddenly I don’t dread apologizing to him. I just want him close.

  My hands shaking, I scroll to Warren’s number. I’m here. Where we planned. Plz come. Sorry.

  Long minutes pass with no answer. At nine, I start fidgeting. At 9:40, I consider reporting Warren missing. But that’s ridiculous.

  If this were yesterday, I might be worried about what I’d see in my sleep if the Thief did something to Warren. Does something. Is doing something.

  Today I know Dylan doesn’t know about Warren and me. If he did, I’d have heard it in his voice when he called Warren creepy—there would have been an edge, a hint of something deeper than annoyance. Today I don’t know if Dylan is the Thief, or even if there is one.

  At ten, I open the bourbon Dylan gave me and take a swig. Disgusting, but it makes me feel light-headed, so I take another.

  Inside my mind, of course, there is still a Thief. Maybe there always will be. But he doesn’t kill people for pointing a camera at him, or for stealing his car or rifling through his shed. That would be unworthy of him. Too personal.

  At 10:37, a key turns in the lock. I sit bolt upright. Be Warren.

  It is. He’s pulled a black jacket over the white T-shirt he wore in the desert, and his tan has deepened in the past three days, making his brown hair and eyes seem lighter.

  I jump out of bed and almost hug him, then freeze when I see the hooded squint of his eyes and the line of his mouth. He’s almost as pissed as a waterlogged Sugarman, though he hides it better.

  I flop back down, staring at my hands on my knees. “You must be—I’m so sorry. I never thought you’d be there.”

  Warren tosses his jacket on the bed and throws himself down after it. “I’m beat.”

  “Me too.” As if that’s an excuse.

  Warren’s eyes slide to me, then away. All his movements are smoother, slower, less nervous than usual; has hanging out with college kids for three days changed him that much?

  “He drove out where you said,” he says finally.

  “Who?” I whip around to face him, my own nerves jangling, but he doesn’t even change expression.

  “You know who. I tailed him after he dropped you off. He went north on Interstate Eighty-Five, past the casino, then off on that little county road. Then another turn, right where your logbook said it would be, but I didn’t follow him. I waited for him to leave, and he did. About fifteen minutes before sunset.”

  I can’t form words; everything’s colliding. Dylan did go to the mine? Is that what Warren’s saying? Dylan was where I was last night? But today, in daylight?

  It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’ve seen for myself there’s nothing out there but sagebrush and graffiti.

  Warren’s staring at me the way Kirb
y did the first time she saw me fall apart and sob. Is that how I look now?

  “Nina, are you drinking?”

  “Only a few sips.” As I point to the bottle, a chortling sound bubbles out of me, suggesting I’ve understated the case. At least I’m not bawling, though the sudden lump in my throat confuses me. Too much at the same time. “It was a twenty-first birthday gift.”

  “From him?” Warren asks in a neutral tone.

  That’s when I know he doesn’t trust me. He’s approaching me like the good cop approaches the murder suspect. The subtext of every word is Go on, prove to me you’re innocent, even though everything you say can be used against you.

  “Yes, from him. But it’s not what you think.”

  Then it all comes out in a flood: how I had to see Dylan, who he is to me, everything I’ve learned about him, every way I’ve tested him.

  “The more I think about it, the more I think you might have been right the whole time. About early memories. About just knowing things on a subconscious level. About my brain playing tricks on me. He’s my brother. Of course I feel connected to him.” I kick off my flip-flops, pull my feet up, and collapse on the bed beside Warren like he’s shot me. “Do you hear what I’m saying? I think you were right. I’m sorry I had to lie to you to find that out.”

  He doesn’t answer at first. I roll over to see him staring at the ceiling, eyes half closed.

  “What about the Gustafssons?” he asks carefully.

  My eyelid twitches. The images from that spring night are still too vivid; I shove them aside. “I don’t know, Warren. Maybe it was a crazy coincidence. Maybe you were right about that slaughterhouse thing—I read an article about it, and their name stuck in my head.”

  “Have you asked your brother why he was in Schenectady that night?”

  “No,” I admit. It was one of the questions I meant to spring on Dylan, but the right moment never came. “But when we talked about back east, he mentioned he was in New York for a convention this spring. I checked—there was a scale-model convention in Schenectady. It was a week and a half earlier, but—”

  “But he spent that week and a half at his friend’s cabin in Canada and then swung around back to Schenectady, even though it was out of his way. Right?” Warren folds his hands under his head. “Or did you not ask him about that, either?”

  “How could I?” I’m stunned Warren even remembers my account of my night visions so well. “Anyway, you’re the one who’s been telling me it’s all in my head, right?”

  He props himself on his elbow and looks down at me. “It can’t all be in your head. You told me the way to that dump site in the desert. I followed him there.”

  “There’s zero proof it’s a dump site. I told you, I went out there and looked for the cave entrance. Nothing.” We’ve switched places, him suddenly hot on Dylan’s trail while I hang back, and it’s happened too fast. “Which means what I saw in my sleep was wrong. Which means you can’t rely on me.”

  “But he was there today,” Warren says doggedly. “Of all the places to go in the desert, he was there.”

  “So maybe I knew about that place—some way I don’t remember. Just like the way I described his house—only I could’ve looked it up online, just like you did, and then forgotten I had. And his name. And Eliana.”

  I see it all like a movie. Me searching Dylan, learning his address. Memorizing his house. Watching his feeds, hearing about his Schenectady trip. I keep a logbook of his movements—how can I be sure at this point what I “saw” and what I researched?

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s been doing the stalking.”

  Warren’s eyes fix on me, gleaming under the heavy lids. “Either you remember researching him, or you don’t. Which is it?”

  I pull my knees to my chest and hide my head in my arms. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  We stay like that for a while. Then the bedsprings squeak, and I peek through my fingers to see Warren scooting up against the headboard and leaning his chin on his bony knees. With my head inches from his hip, I feel his body vibrating, his breath coming quicker as he says, “I guess I never expected you to start—well, recanting. I’m confused. And honestly, kinda scared.”

  “Scared? What of?”

  “Of him. Of you. For you.”

  “You need to stay away from Dylan,” I say. “We can go out to the desert and search that place again if you want, but let me handle him.”

  I’m not sure anymore if I’m more worried about what Dylan could do to Warren, or vice versa. Who has the box of guns?

  A snort of laughter, and I sit up to find Warren grimacing. “What?”

  “I saw the way you ‘handled’ him today.”

  My face goes hot. “What do you mean?”

  Warren’s face is red, too, and the second derisive noise he makes is too loud. “The two of you, it was like you were flirting, almost. Or like you were desperate to impress him.”

  Blood still pounds in my burning temples, but it’s so ridiculous I laugh. “He’s my brother—seriously, gross, Warren.”

  Warren flushes deeper. “All I’m saying is, it creeped me out.” He latches his gaze to mine, and I realize I’m not going to embarrass him out of this. “The way he was talking to you—it was like he was hypnotizing you, Nina. He kept getting closer and closer to you, like it was just you two against the world. Look, I saw him lie to a girl in the welcome center. He said he was from Vermont, and she believed him. Maybe he’s manipulating you, too.”

  “You’re jealous.” It comes out before I can think.

  “Jealous of what, exactly?”

  Warren’s eyes are too bright, like he’s on the verge of tears, which tells me I’m right and should stop now, but I can’t. “He gets me,” I say. “In a way you never will.”

  Warren’s lip curls as he backs away from me. “You told me he was a psychopath. You want to be one, too?”

  I shake my head. What I do want crystallizes in my brain, clear as a constellation in the subzero sky.

  I want a brother.

  I want never to see another murder.

  And somehow, in a way I don’t understand yet, those two wants are connected.

  Warren looks like he’s about to ask another question, so I crawl to him and grab him by both shoulders.

  He goes quiet. Right away. The power of my touch awes me a little—and then I realize I’m touching him, and I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.

  My hands slide up the hot skin of his neck where his pulse flutters. My fingers graze the high knoll of his cheekbone, the hollow under his left eye, the almost-invisible freckles on his nose. When I cup his face and pull him to me, he doesn’t resist. He shuts his eyes and goes still as a mannequin, his lips dry and closed.

  Then, all of a sudden, he gulps a breath and starts kissing me back, his hands tangling in my hair. His mouth opens under mine, hot and wet, and I taste kiwi Life Savers as his tongue darts between my lips.

  Here’s that floating sensation I had when I started the Sequoia’s engine, my skin getting tighter and hotter.

  Because he isn’t that middle school boy anymore. He’s the lean, lanky boy whose face and chest show beautiful planes in the western sun. The boy who may already be making college girls fall hard for him.

  And as long as we’re touching, it’s like he never asked me all those unanswerable questions.

  Warren gasps, and somehow I’m on my back looking up at him. I forgot he’s stronger than me.

  His lips are moist and red. “You’re crazy,” he says between gasps.

  His T-shirt hangs between us untucked, too loose, so I slide my hand under it, and he closes his eyes. “Nina, I’m serious,” he says, but the words are broken up in the wrong places.

  “You’re serious what?”

  Warren pushes me away and flops over on his back. His breathing is rough. “We can’t,” he says.

  “Why not?” God, why not? I want to trace the muscles through his shirt—or maybe just pull i
t off him.

  I touch his elbow, and he flinches. “Because you’re trying to—I don’t know what you’re trying to do. This isn’t you.”

  How’s it not me? What kind of guy stops you? Bitterness creeps back into my voice. “Because you think I’m a bitch who’s just using you?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice breaks. “I don’t know.”

  “Or maybe you think I’m crazy? Like you just said?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Carefully, so as not to startle him, I prop myself up on my elbow. He looks so broken right now, and I want him to know this isn’t fake.

  It’s a little too real.

  “I think you should come with me to Arizona,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “You need to meet your mom, and you should be alone for that. I need to…”

  I trace the line of his lips. “I don’t want you to follow him again. I don’t.”

  Warren frowns at me, his whole face going tight, suspicious. He’s weirdly beautiful that way with his narrow eyes, so much more secretive-looking than mine. “If you don’t think he’s a serial killer, what does it matter if I follow him? I won’t be in danger, right?”

  “I don’t know.” I just don’t like the thought of him skulking around Dylan’s house, maybe getting caught and even dragged into the police station if Eliana’s feeling especially protective. “You might do something reckless.”

  Warren sits up, and now it’s me who backs away.

  Only at first. When he leans against me, our foreheads touching, and kisses the corner of my mouth, I close my eyes.

  I thought I couldn’t have something like this. I dreamed of the Thief lying to his girlfriend, night after night, and I thought I’d never trust a boy.

  But I do. “I want you to be safe,” I whisper against his hair.

  Warren nods.

  I hold his face between my hands again. I want to be closer to him, want to feel the heat of the skin under his baggy clothes, want to kiss those vulnerable places on his neck hard enough to leave bruises, but first we need to settle something. “If you have to do it, Warren, promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t let him see you. No guns. And don’t go near his girlfriend or the kid.”